The computer hacking group Anonymous issued the first warning to attack Hong Kong sites on Oct. 2. In the group's video message, they declared "cyber war" on the Chinese government and police force for using tear gas against the Hong Kong protesters. The next day, some sites became either inaccessible or only intermittently accessible.
The group's threat of cyber attacks show that it is seriously supporting the protests for democracy in Hong Kong. Working under the banner "Operation Hong Kong" and sending Twitter messages under the #OpHK and #OpHongKong hash tags, Anonymous subjected the government's justice, defense and public security ministries' official sites to a synchronized bog down. These caused the servers to become temporarily unavailable.
The group successfully infiltrated over 50 central government websites. More than 50,000 staff were affected by the attacks, which also infiltrated their email, usernames and passwords. The leaks also included individual IP addresses, names and phone numbers.
The sites that suffered the latest attacks were identified as the Ningo Free Trade Zone website in Zhejian province and a job search site that is controlled by the Changxing county administration. There was no clear explanation why the group targeted the two websites.
"We are still in the beginning of this operation; we will continue to fight the Chinese government as long as the citizens of Hong Kong fight for their freedom," Anonymous said online. "We stand and fight alongside the citizens of Hong Kong. Try to stop us."
Anonymous also threatened to leak the personal information of government officials.
On Oct. 11, the group posted an announcement with the words "China Attacks Success." Many of the attacked websites remained offline until late Saturday night.
The Hong Kong Liaison Office of the Chinese regime said that they have already reported the attacks to the police.
"This kind of Internet attack violates the law and social morals, and we have already reported it to the police," the Office said.
Strudalz, one of Anonymous' most prominent members, responded to the claim that the attacks have been reported. "We found it funny when they said they reported it to the police because we had already taken them down," said Strudalz.
The online activist added that the group is launching the cyber attacks in order to show the student protesters in Hong Kong that they are not alone in their fight for democracy. Anonymous also wanted the protesters to know that people around the world support them.
